Pilgrim Surf + Supply: The Spirit Of Morning Of The Earth - Albert Falzon & Heath Joske

Over forty years ago Albert Falzon dropped the film and soundtrack Morning of the Earth. The soundtrack became a gold record record in Australia, it’s feel good hope resonatedwith the people, who’s country at the time was involved heavily in the Vietnam War. The film was a stark contrast to war. It featured surfing in the pristine waters of the North Coast of New South Wales, Hawaii and Indonesia, the surfers living on farms, shaping boards, raising chickens and growing their own vegetables. It was back to nature, getting involved.

For the last couple of years I’ve been working with Albert on a new film that celebrates Morning of the Earth (Spirit of Akasha). We wanted to see if the spirit that was in the original film is still alive today. One of the featured surfers in the film is Heath Joske. In this interview Heath and Albert discuss growing up on the North Coast and what Morning of the Earth meant to them.

Andrew Kidman: The whole thing about having a garden, is there a philosophy surrounding it - that you realize your whole life can revolve around the food you can gather from your garden?

Albert Falzon: It is just a natural way of living, that’s why surfer’s resonate towards that way of living, it’s like being in the ocean. You go to surf and it is such a natural beautiful thing to do and if you are living in the country and you go back to your farm and you grow vegetables. It's similar to riding waves because it is so organic and so beautiful and you are still connected to nature. You create this lifestyle, and if you have a family and children well, obviously they are going to be better off because they are going to be connected to these energy fields. That is what is so beautiful about it. Heath, did you grow up on a farm?

Heath Joske: The first seven years of my life we lived in a shed; the factory was one part of the shed, mom and dad had their room, and then there was another room which me, Sage and Violet were in and then there was the living room and the bath area, but it was all one part of the one building and then from when I was about five dad started building our other house which we eventually moved into. It was a wooden pole house all made from native hardwoods. It was an epic house. We had five acres at the back of Valla and it was seven minutes drive to the beach; mum used to grow all our veggies and we had an epic orchard. We had five guava trees that used to go off every autumn and we had heaps of citrus, plenty of fruit trees, used to keep us pretty satisfied most the year...

Click here to read the full interview by Andrew Kidman and Michele Lockwood at pilgrimsurfsupply.com